CARNIVAL (The Spark Form Chronicles Book 2) (25 page)

              I sit back into the chair and cross my arms behind my head, and the stiffness across my chest hits overdrive again. I smile widely in an effort to keep it off my face, and Lana shakes her head.

              "You've lost weight," she says with a sigh as she finishes sweeping me with her scanner. "You're stable though. That's something at least."

              "You sound worried," I laugh. "It's cool, just a small op."

              Lana sits down opposite me and rubs the bridge of her nose, squinting her eyes closed in frustration. It's odd really. I'd have thought that she'd have been under less stress after they took Carnival away for testing. I guess getting what you want doesn't always equal an easy life. "We've been keeping an eye on you," she says. "The weight loss isn't just from the operation, is it?"

              I shrug and flash a cheeky grin. "If you've been watching me, then you know the answer to that. It's fine. I'll eat when we get home."

              Lana sits back and crosses her arms. "I heard that you can't use the Spinal Implants anymore."

              "They'd interfere with the heart monitor," I reply, tapping my chest. "Either I'd fry it, and myself with it, or it'd send a false signal and Carnival would ..." I trail off.

              "Die," Lana finishes. "Do you even realise how insane this all sounds John? You've just had a life threatening operation that's ended your career, not to mention that you've probably shaved a good ten or more years off your life, and for what? For a Spark Form?"

              "She wants to die with me," I state plainly. "She's entitled to make that choice. Besides, my career isn't done yet, I just can't play live. Sean Carlston's already looking into running my matches backstage, old school style, and having the SF's act them out during the show."

              "And your life?"

              "The Implants cut that down anyway. If anything, I'll probably lose less this way than if I'd kept playing like I was."

              "She can heal, change her clothes and alter her stats," Lana snaps. "But she can't change her physical form. If this is some sort of kink John, you'd have been better off going to one of the brothels on Cothurn. At least the Spark Forms there are equipped to deal with ... with ...
that
."

              I smile. "There's more to life than fucking, Lana. I mean, we did try kissing once, but trying to kiss someone with a muzzle is
so
awkward."

              "The worse thing is, I can't even tell if you're joking right now," she groans, dropping her face into her hands.

              "Good capacity though."

              "For fuck's sake John!"

              "C'mon Lana, lighten up. Besides, shouldn't you know what Carnival and I do or don't get up to in our free time? Your scans must've told you all sorts of fun stuff."

              She shakes her head. "No, actually. We know next to nothing about you and Carnival outside the shows other than what we had already observed."

              "Really?"

              "Her Wick went off for repairs. For scans, we only turn her image off, not her consciousness. It means that she can help push data through as we need it, but also means that she can block certain things. As it turns out, she gave us free access to pretty much everything, bar her memories with you. We scan Finn the same way."

              "I'm surprised that you didn't try to break through."

              "And risk her cooperation?" Lana snaps again, "don't be ridiculous John. Besides, if I'm to look at her as a potentially alive, I've got to allow her some rights to privacy. I'm not sure that I want to know what you two get up to anyway."

              "Lana, you and I both know that this isn't about me and Carnival's ever so romantic evenings at home," I reply stretching my shoulders until they click. I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees and my chin on my hands as I smile at my somewhat flustered host. "So why don't you tell you me what's really getting ya so worked up."

              Lana looks at me, her mouth involuntarily dropping open in surprise. She blinks, composes herself and picks up a small collection of papers. Her eyes scan the front page a few times, then turn back to me. Finally, with a sigh, she offers me the stapled print-outs. "I've thought a lot about why this project even exists," she says quietly as I reach forward and take the papers. Rather than start reading, I continue listening as she says, "The one thing that I kept coming back to was the idea that it might be military or something like that. I mean, if Emblem are involved with stuff like this, it makes sense that they could be linked to other stuff, right?"

              I can feel a strange mix of confusion and curiosity creeping across my face, even before I look down and start skimming the first page. "Does Carnival know about this?" I ask, glancing up while I flip to the second of the three sheets.

              Lana shakes her head.

              "It says here that the SSFs are to be deployed out with the Planetary Exploration Team, to assist with ..." I trail off as I read the description of the SSFs targets. "But these sound like ..."

              "Motts. I know," Lana says.

              "Suspected hive mind," I read out loud, "usually attack in pairs ... that's why you had her fight the two mannequin things at once?"

              "I didn't know any of this at the time," she replies. "She's fought bigger groups since then too. You'll be happy to know that you're probably safe if a group of no larger than five tries to mug you."

              "Good to know," I say, turning to the last page. "I'm guessing that Spark Forms are seen as pretty expendable, but why the need for sentience?"

              "The normal military Drones are programmed to follow strict orders to the letter with little variance. I haven't finished reading all the reports yet but it sounds like, whatever these things are, they're adaptive."

              "So the Drones just aren't effective?"

              "No. We've gained a little ground by using real soldiers and letting them do pretty much whatever they want dependent on the situation, but the casualties are still too high."

              "So they want something as expendable as the Drones but with human intelligence."

              "Looks that way."

              Lana remains silent while I finish reading. Part of me expected the questions about Carnival and our relationship, but this never even occurred to me. "How did you get this?" I ask.

              "Finn did some digging for me. That's just the summary though. The rest is ... it's historical, or it is in part."

              "Hold on," I say, something finally clicking in my head. "My Grandad started on the project six years ago."

              Lana nods. "The project had only been around about seven or eight months at that point. I know what you mean though. We've been fighting these things for years now."

              "All the Exploratory Videos ..."

              "Designed to keep all
that
out of the public eye."

              "Fahrn would be thrilled," I mutter.

              "She'll probably find out soon enough," Lana sighs. I raise a curious eyebrow and she continues, "The Offland Civil Rights Movement only started gaining momentum a couple of years ago. Before that, victories were small. Even the stuff immediately following that riot in Quadro just
looked
big. The overall effects of the law changes were pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Then a few small laws about who could donate money to where and how much were subtly altered and all of a sudden the movement had an income stream.

              "Since then, more and more laws have been changing. According to the reports, the next big one is going to be the United Military Service Act." She sighs and rubs her head. "It seems that we're not moving quick enough for the Emblem higher-ups, so unless we can create a definite, provable sentience drive within the next year, there's going to be an influx of Offland recruits called up to service and sent off to assist the PET. Most of them won't be coming back."

              "Oh, come on," I say. "You can't honestly be telling me that Emblem has that much sway in politics?"

              "I honestly don't know," she says, her voice shaky and dripping with frustration. "I don't know who the Hell I'm working for any more. But what I do know is that all those people that get sent out there to die ... it'll be because my team is failing, because
I'm
failing."

              "That's not ..." I begin, but she cuts me off.

              "You don't get it John. We're losing out there," she says, the tears coming as she waves her arms skywards. "They're gonna use the Offlanders as martyrs. They want to create a surge of unified patriotism so that they can get a voluntary run of recruits. If I can't replicate what your Grandfather did, their blood may as well be on my hands." She pauses and fixes me with an empty stare. "And even then, all I'm doing is giving them the means to create more lives to sacrifice."

              "So," I reply, "you
do
believe that Carnival's alive."

              Lana blinks, and her eyes soften.

              "It's weird to think that they're so close by," I say as we turn the corner to the now near deserted high street. "I never even stopped to think what might be in that place before."

              Carnival rarfs from under her hood. I don't doubt that she was surprised too, but she wouldn't admit that. The location makes sense given Grandad's involvement though. But then, Lana did say that they only moved to the place last year, so I guess that they could have just found out where we were and moved on in.

              I take Carnival's hand and feel her tail pat against me from under the long robe-slash-coat-thing that she's taken to wearing. It's all very twenty first century goth, but she likes it and it keeps her hidden, so it's all cool with me.

              "We have a lot to talk about when we get home," I say. "They said that they'd worked on your Wick chassis so that the beer doesn't damage it any more. Did you know that you were using it as a coolant, or was that just done on instinct?"

              Carnival shrugs and lets her tongue loll out with a pant.

              "OK, OK, I get it, you're thirsty. Don't worry, I made sure that we were well stocked before I came to get you. Did they explain why they want you back for day tests once a month?"

              Carnival shakes her head with a throaty hurf noise.

              "Actually, the staff probably don't know," I mumble to myself. "There's that then. Plus, the side-effects of my op."

              Carnival jumps in front of me, hands on her hips and head tilted angrily to one side.

              "It's nothing to worry about," I laugh. "Come on, let's ..."

              A small but over-excited voice cuts me off with a cry of, "It is!"

              "Chloe, will you just ... I'm so sorry," comes another voice.

              I turn to see a familiar girl smiling happily up at me. "Hello Chloe," I say, dropping to one knee. "Did you enjoy the tournament?"

              "I did!" She yells, then launches into an energetic Kung-Fu inspired routine as she cries, "It was all Bam! Pow!"

              I laugh. "I'm very sorry that we didn't win for you though. I think Carnival must have been drunk." I feel a hard foot connect with the back of my foot and nearly trip, but cover it with a flamboyant wave of my near arm and a "whoop."

              "That's OK," says Chloe, taking a break from her assault on her invisible enemies. "She'll win next time. Carnival always comes back and wins in Spark Force. Even if it's five episodes later. Mu-um, can I have another photo?" She asks, turning to her thoroughly exhausted parent.

              I smile, and pull the Mobile Loader from my pocket, making a show of tapping the screen while Carnival drops her hood and assumes a Ready Stance, her tail and ears swishing happily as a big grin spreads across her face.